Tuesday, May 09, 2017

Liberals, intolerant? Say it ain't so!

But more recent psychological research, some of it presented in January at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), shows that it's not so simple. These findings confirm that conservatives, liberals, the religious and the nonreligious are each prejudiced against those with opposing views. But surprisingly, each group is about equally prejudiced. While liberals might like to think of themselves as more open-minded, they are no more tolerant of people unlike them than their conservative counterparts are.

It is a quite long piece, worth looking at for the research links alone. I quite liked this part here:

Filip Uzarevic, from the Catholic University of Louvain, in Beligium, has reported preliminary data showing that Christians were more biased against Chinese, Muslims and Buddhists than were atheists and agnostics, but they were less biased than atheists and agnostics against Catholics, anti-gay activists and religious fundamentalists (with atheists expressing colder feelings than agnostics). So, again, the religious and nonreligious have their own particular targets of prejudice. Perhaps more surprising, atheists and agnostics were less open to alternative opinions than Christians, and they reported more existential certainty. Uzarevic suggested to me after the SPSP conference that these results might be specific to the study's location, Western Europe, which is highly secularized and where the nonreligious, unlike Christians, "do not have so many opportunities and motivations to integrate ideas challenging their own."

Hmm.

Then there was the bit about intelligence. I really like this part.

But raw brainpower itself doesn't seem to be the deciding factor in who we hate: When Brandt controlled for participants' demographics and traditionalism (smart people were more supportive of "newer lifestyles" and less supportive of "traditional family ties"), intelligence didn't correlate with overall levels of prejudice.

And the capper:

Knowing all this, can we change tolerance levels? You might think that the mind-expanding enterprise of education would reduce prejudice. But according to another presentation at the SPSP meeting, it does not. It does, however, teach people to cover it up. Maxine Najle, a researcher at the University of Kentucky, asked people if they would consider voting for a presidential candidate who was atheist, black, Catholic, gay, Muslim or a woman. When asked directly, participants with an education beyond high school reported a greater willingness to vote for these groups than did less-educated participants. But when asked in a more indirect way, with more anonymity, the two groups showed equal prejudice. "So higher education seems to instill an understanding of the appropriate levels of intolerance to express," Najle told me, "not necessarily higher tolerance."

Education's suppression of expressed prejudice suggests a culture of political correctness in which people don't feel comfortable sharing their true feelings for fear of reprisal—just the kind of intolerance conservatives complain about.

None of the above, as I said at the beginning, comes as any surprise to a Conservative thinker. Being on the receiving end of 100 years of Liberalism, one sees the intolerance like a neon sign. There are many subjects about which one simply cannot engage a Liberal in a civil discussion. Gun control, abortion, religion, welfare, these things Liberals simply will not talk rationally about. They move immediately to stop the discussion, as hard and fast as they can. Conservatives are no better, truth to tell, but unlike Liberals we aren't consistently lying about how tolerant we're supposed to be, and how open to new ideas. Liberals are more doctrinaire than an 85 year old Jesuit, and more rigidly conformist than my Victorian grandfather.

There are two solutions to this. The one being pursued vigorously by the "tolerant" Liberal Atheist Left is, hilariously, the suppression and silencing of anything they object to or don't believe in. Enforced conformity, pretty much.

Equally hilariously from a historical perspective, the solution pursued by the Conservative Religious Right is freedom. The freedom to do what you want, say what you want, and associate as you want, without the enforced strictures of Political Correctness crushing your expression.

The choice between repressive conformity and expressive freedom is an easy one, you'd think. Freedom works better from a practical standpoint, and it certainly is easier on the nerves. But then there's that pesky Human Nature thing, we like to fight.